Symmetra is getting another major overhaul soon. Who knows what it'll mean for her League viability but maybe it'll at least save me from getting instantly chainsawed to death by any random jabroni Sym who manages to outflank me for even a split second in Mystery Heroes.

(srsly her M1 is an unbalanced nightmare right now and no one will ever convince me otherwise)

So I like a lot of this concept a lot better - losing the autolock on the chainsaw, readjusting its damage, reworking the teleporter and making it a normal ability - but I have no clue what to think of upgrading her photon barrier to an ult and making it effectively infinite in size with 5000 health.

Who knows if that'll ever leave the test server in that state.

Allowing self-destructing D.Va mechs, Junkrat's Rip-Tires, and Torb's turret placements to travel through her teleporter sounds awesome and hilarious though and I can't wait to see what new strategies evolve from that.

I don't wanna jinx 'em but Shanghai vs. Dallas is happening again. Dallas is missing Effect, their new coach has only been with the team a couple days, and the Stage 4 patch has brought Zarya back into the meta.

I'm still in this weird spot where technically I don't mind Shanghai losing, and find it all very endearing, but at the same time I'm worried about the repercussions that this can have on staff and the individually talented players on that team (none of whom have yet to have revealed themselves to be assholes, AFAIK).

I think Shanghai has already turned over part of their coaching staff at least once but I could see that easily happening again if they go the full 0-40 for Season 1.

Also totally possible they could lose their big stars to stronger teams and get forced into another big rebuild. I'm sure there's tons of teams who'd be interested in adding a Diya, Geguri, Ado, etc. if the opportunity comes up and I don't know enough about the contractual side of esports to know if Shanghai is in a position to negotiate to keep 'em around.

cybersix wrote:it's cute how some people are complaining about how having a skin behind a paywall is so unfair. i wasn't going to donate but now i might buy it 5 times and wear it forever

I've seen so many Pink Mercys in Arcade recently, it's pretty cool. So hopefully the donations are outperforming the complaining. Maybe I'll pause my Humble Monthly (Destiny 2? Get outta here) and put that cash towards the skin instead. Even if I rarely play Mercy unless I get her in the Mystery Heroes randomizer.

sorta figure the kinda people complaining about the special paywall for this skin also get tilted about not having a paywall for all the other skins 'cause they keep getting owned by lootbox rng

This guy is a tad obnoxious but he's got a decent breakdown of the new Symmetra.

Highlights: her chainsaw is no longer autolock and now functions more or less the same as Zarya's cannon (just retaining Sym's original charge-over-time/damage mechanic), so that's my biggest and oldest complaint solved right away. Her alt-fire works kinda like it did before, it's just faster now, and has better splash damage, which for my money is a good trade for losing the primary lock-on.

Her turrets are now launched from a distance instead of placed at arm's length, which should give them some nice new utility 'cause they should be able to reach interesting new places now, instead of just being limited to blind archways or hidden inside bushes. Total number reduced to 3 from 6, but they're harder to kill, seem to have better range/power/slow, and those launch tricks will be a lot more fun and dynamic, situationally anyway.

The old shield generator ult is gone, replaced by a supermassive fuck-off 5000HP barrier that splits pretty much the entire map in two. This thing is absolutely ridiculous and I can't wait to see if it totally changes team fights and holds or ends up being easier to work around than expected. Without actually seeing it in a proper fight I have a hard time visualizing its exact utility in my head.

The biggest/best change though is probably moving her teleporter from ult to a standard ability, plus it now works kinda like Portal instead of always keeping one end in the spawn room. So, one entrance will always be placed at Sym's feet, and the other end you can aim as you would a Reaper teleport, basically. This will allow her to provide quick two-way access for other characters with low mobility, open up some weird unexpected flank routes (especially through vertical spaces), and certain abilities (even ults!) can travel through the teleporter, including blinking/recalling Tracers, charging Reinharts, boosted D.Va self-destructs, and Junkrat's riptire.

So uh I'm really liking the new-look Symmetra so far, even if I'm not necessarily gonna become a Sym main overnight (nor would I expect to see her become a high-value pick in OWL Season 2), she's at least far better positioned to make the rest of her team better via her reworked teleport and when I get her over and over again in Mystery Heroes at least I'll have some new kit to look forward to.

I should start playing the new Symmetra on the PTR, so when competitive season 11 or 12 rolls around I can hopefully stomp faces during the period where nobody knows how to beat her.

Any of y'all play competitive Overwatch? Back in season 2 I maxed out at 1973 SR, and then I had a shit run in season 8 where I fell into Bronze League Hell. Once you are in bronze league you can go fuck yourself if you want to play with decent people. About 1/2 your games will have one of the following:

- Some asshole who has another account where they have a 3000 SR, but decided to get a second account where they purposefully fall into bronze for the Express Purpose of making everyone's lives miserable
- A person who calls your team trash and then ragequits half-way through (chances are this person has not contributed in any meaningful way themselves)
- One really good Widow who will camp you at spawn.
- An entire team of people who only know how to play Soldier

I'm scared of Comp for basically all of those raisins + probably having to turn voice chat on and deal with all that can entail. Never even ran placements, though I've been curious on occasion, just never enough to actually hit the button.

If I had a full premade to roll with then I'd probably be down. But aside from you the only people I know who own Overwatch haven't played since 2016 and a couple of 'em can be kinda unpleasant to play with, so

So that's OWL Season 1 in the books. Playoffs in July, finals move to the Barclay's Center in New York to determine the championship, as if it were NXT Takeover or somethin'

Stories of the season, from what I saw of it: NYXL were pretty dominant almost the whole way and the only largely Korean roster which didn't falter mid-way through (London started strong and weakened, while Seoul at times looked in danger of collapsing completely; from hubris of naming your team "Dynasty," maybe.) Both Los Angeles teams were stronger than expected, especially the Valiant. Houston had the stronger Texan team by miles mostly thanks to Dallas falling apart at the seams, though the Fuel bounced back at the end. Philly, Boston, and San Fran were all over the map but all finished pretty strong, or at least well-positioned for Season 2. Florida is bad but charming.

Of course, the Shanghai Dragons finished 0-40, as was prophesied. This is actually a new world record for losing streaks in professional sports (actually, they set that record somewhere around 0-28, I think, unseating the previous record set by the Philadelphia 76ers just a few years ago) - if records from traditional sports and esports are now being integrated and compared that way. Since OWL might be the first esports league to move to a traditional regional franchise system, could be that no one but OWL is talking about stats and records in these terms right now.

Anyway, here are the playoff maps if yer into that.

It's hard not to see NYXL rolling right over this thing but considering they didn't sweep all four stage playoffs, who knows. I'd be fine with Valiant taking them down, but a less likely upset from farther down the seeds would be really great. Go London? Get Xavier back in the house.

"Hammond cannot speak, in English or any other language; that would be completely ridiculous" - Jeff Kaplan, 2018

e:

Basically, he's Richard Hammond a hamster is a battlemech with a ball form that can roll and swing. I can't wait to see what his rolling speed is like, and how much it can be boosted by launching into it from a swinging motion, 'cause there really aren't any abilities like this in OW so far which rely on the physics engine like that.

Also can't wait to see which maps work the best for that ball form. Not every map has ramps or inclines, and some could lead to some funny accidental environmental deaths.